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Are there any other DAW out there that I should give a whirl. I have really really like Reaper so far in the trial period. Finally got tired of dealing with Audacity issues as that product seemed to get messed up when I moved to windows 7. $60.00 for reaper seems like a good deal on a pretty strong program.

Believe it or not, what I think is another excellent solution for most project recordists is...Garageband. The current version is hugely powerful (you can fully automate all plug-ins) and a brilliant integration of audio, midi and looping capabilities. The stock plug-ins and virtual instruments sound excellent.

Got Reaper last year for $40 and love its simplicity. I just bought a Digi002 with PTLE 8 and until I get the hang of it I plan to import my recorded tracks over to Reaper for basic manipulation/editing.

After getting a chance to play around with my ProTools setup, I'm finding the program screens very similar and haven't needed to go back to Reaper for manipulation. But main point being that Reaper is pretty similar to PT, much more so than I had anticipated.

(This message was last edited by RivEraEra at 05:14 PM, Apr 10th, 2012)

I've been using Reaper for a couple of years and love it. I use a BOSS 1600 to record (cuz I have it) and then transfer the files to the PC and convert them to wav with a slick program called WAVMAKER. Then all editing, mixing and processing is done in Reaper. Mixing, especially editing, on the BOSS was pretty cumbersome.

Reaper does have it's limits though - can't fix my singing or playing ;)

I just bought a PreSonus 4 track audio interface and it comes with fairly fancy software; I might say very fancy. However, it doesn't "master". I don't understand "mastering" that well, but it seems like software that does that, polishes your recording for stereo fairly easily.

Does Reaper master?

Or can I fix my recording with the StudioOne program I have and then "master" with audacity?

Mastering, put simply, is just taking a finished mix and adjusting dynamics and EQ for the mix as a whole. Usually the point of mastering is to make adjustments to a group of songs that will be on an album in order to bring greater sonic coherence to the whole. It's also a chance for a mastering engineer--who specializes in this, and has equipment and room optimized for it--to make tweaks to dynamics and EQ that will help the mix translate well to a maximum variety of playback systems.

You can do "mastering" with any DAW and any EQ and dynamics plug-ins. Some plug-in packages have particular features, or combine features in ways that are designed to make it easier to work on a stereo mix. Some people also prefer to do mastering in stereo audio editor software rather than multi-track software.

If you are relatively new to recording and mixing there's no particular reason to approach "mastering' as a separate activity. Consider just working on your mixes to make them sound as you want them to. If you are are mixing multiple songs for an album you can drag all the finished mixes into a single DAW session and compare volumes and EQ and make adjustments as if each was a separate track in the session.

If you are doing an album for release consider having an experienced mastering engineer do the mastering.

Until we can get a bass player we can count on, it may just be a "vanity" thing. I have this really nice recording set up and need to learn how to use it. It really looks kinda easy to record. I have been pretty busy since it came in.

Thanks, Aaron. I haven't decided to buy Reaper yet. I am seeing if I can get the bundled software from PreSonus to work correctly. Hopefully, I will get myself to do that this PM. I don't have to feed cows, but I do need to buy Mom's Day presents and cards. Tomorrow I have to work on the roof and maybe mow. Always something.

+1 for Magix products.
I have been using Samplitude for about 10 years.
It's not "entry level" software but I expect you will out grow whatever you decide to buy and will end up spending more to have better tools down the road.
There is a demo of the latest version of Samplitude out there somewhere.

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